Google bans crypto mining apps from Play Store
Google has amended the Play Store terms to ban apps that mine crypto coins on Android smartphones or tablets. Currently, there are still some mining apps in the Play Store.
The new policy can be found in the Developer Policy Center for the Play Store. The website states that apps that mine crypto coins themselves are now banned. However, it is still allowed to create an app that allows remote management of a mining computer.
Google doesn’t seem to have implemented the new policy yet. Several mining apps, such as AA Miner, Crypto Miner, MinerGate and NeoNeoMiner can still be found in the Play Store and can still be downloaded and installed. It is not clear whether Google has plans to remove such apps and when this would happen.
It is not the first time that Google has taken action against crypto mining. The company has banned all crypto mining Chrome extensions from the Chrome Web Store since April. According to Google, there were many extensions for Chrome that appeared to have a legitimate purpose, but in the meantime used the computer’s hardware to mine crypto coins without the user’s permission.